NOTES OF FOURTEENTH PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING

Thursday 14^th June 2007 -- at PSJ, Beacon Hall, small Lounge Meeting Room

R.W.G.Butt, Chair (RWGB)

Kathy Thomas Vice-Chair+"Environment, OpenSpaces, Footpaths, Flora&Fauna" (KMT)

P.R.Provest, Secretary + "Transport" (PRP)

Ross Thompson Overall handling of Public Consultation Questionnaires, & data (RRT)

Terry Nicholls, "Social Facilities and Peasedown Opportunities Project" (T_N)

Guy Matthews monitor of Parish Plan finances, + representing PSJ P.Council (G_M)

Jacqui Ward Community Action ( see Minute.2 ) (J_W)

Dave Dixon B&NES Local Partnership Co-ordinator (D_D)

J.C.L.Lyddieth a resident (JCLL)

Josephine Stockley general advisor (J_S)

Bridie Marshall "Youth, etc" (BFM)

Michael Gregory "Sport", etc also "P.A.C.T." (formerly C.S.A.G) (MJG)

Ruth Grant advisor on health / social aspects (R_G)

Derek Kennedy advisor on available public meeting facilities (DJTK)

Alan Shamp re DUNKERTON Parish Plan project and Parish Clerk (AJS)

John S.Bolwell representing PSJ P.Council and residents’ interests (JSB)

Nathan Hartley "Faith" and B&NES Councillor (NLRH)

Bob Butt welcomed Jacqui Ward of ‘Community Action’

Jacqui Ward explained she had fully taken over responsibility for the PSJ Parish Plan project within Community Action, but there had been some set-back on helping with our scheme due to some loss of, or incompleteness in, C.A.’s internal files. This situation should quickly be retrieved and she would be providing assistance to us in whatever way was appropriate,
e.g. over finance, or publicity displays and presentations, etc.

or copies could be supplied direct on request to Secretary PRP.

Minutes were signed by RWGB as a true record.

Bob Butt said it was again necessary to remind members we were at our fourteenth meeting of the Project, yet process was barely midway towards completion. Every effort was needed to regain impetus towards timely completion and published Plan. As there was likely to be a further significant increase in population of PSJ, taking us towards 7000 total, it was highly desirable our Plan should be in place before this situation occurred.

None on this occasion.

Neither Bob Butt nor finance monitor Guy Matthews had any updated information on the progress of our Grant application. RWGB said in conjunction with Ross Thompson a number of supplementary queries that had been received after our application had been submitted had been settled, apparently satisfactorily, and it was not clear why the process of issuing grant had apparently come to a standstill.

Jacqui Ward said she was willing to follow this up for us, but in preparation would need a preliminary briefing, primarily with Ross Thompson, for her to understand what had been submitted and queried earlier. This would be arranged outside this meeting.

However the Project was not currently hampered by immediate lack of finance. Parish Council had granted £ 1000 which was being used very economically, and tangible help came from the Community Association who waived room hire rent for these Project meetings.

Greater financial commitment lay ahead however, in further consultation processes and final publishings.

In preparation for this meeting Ross Thompson had e-mailed two documents to all members of the Steering Group. These were :

"List of Organised Groups in the Parish", and

"Consultation with Organised Groups, Initial Results, Compiled by Theme".

RRT led the discussion by saying he had moved from a position of pessimism regarding the public consultation exercise to one of encouragement and optimism now that the first results were in from the Organised Groups within the village.

---the method of Consultation was achieving fifty per cent response return rate from Groups.

---encouragingly, and contrary to all expectations, there were -no- obvious lines of opinion divisions across the village.

---similar concerns, wants, and needs were being originated from all sectors of the village.

Kathy Thomas said this confirmed her own view that the common assumption that PSJ was "divided" was not necessarily backed up by firm evidence or fact. It was necessary to remain "positive" and assume that the population did have an interest in the future of the village.

Terry Nicholls, whilst not disagreeing with the need for optimism, felt there -is- some undercurrent of ‘two villages’ attitude, partly based on pure geography expressed as :

"Too far to Recreation Ground" or "Too far to Beacon Hall" depending on home location.
In regard to consultation generally, there was a widespread unfortunate tendency among the public to say, in the future "we were never consulted", even though they actually had been.

RWGB said another unfortunate negative attitude was disseminated through the education system, as he had found an impression that PSJ had a ‘bad reputation’ being carried through other schools in the area. He did feel it would make greater equitable sense if eventually the two Councillors elected to B&NES were specifically originated, one each, from the two parts of the village that are separately electorally coded with a "PS" and "PD" reference.

RWGB said he continued to have concerns over the level of response rate that was going to be expected from us, as a large village, compared with other villages of much smaller population, where the requirement to achieve fifty per cent response rate was achievable.

Much discussion then ensued regarding the degree of volunteer time and effort needed to distribute questionnaires to every household. In general it was felt getting questionnaires out was relatively manageable, the problem arose when either trying to get completed forms back, or ‘doorstep clipboarding’ to get the information orally. Several members expressed misgivings about involvment in the latter part of such an exercise, as it was felt many householders were tired of doorstep salesmen and could well be abusive.

Jacqui Ward said the "fifty per cent" quoted was not necessarily a mandatory figure,

‘Plan’ members just needed to prove they had strived to get as much response as they could.

In a separate issue regarding legal constraints on revealing "personal data", Jacqui Ward confirmed it was permissible to publish data down to "postcode level" ( so that could be a short street or half a long one ) without offending the legislation on this matter.

RRT summarised the remaining stages of consultation as follows :

---the ( now nearly completed ) contacts being made with Groups and Businesses

---wider individual consultation of Households ( questionnaire design from preceding item )

---issue that questionnaire; get it back ( or oral canvass ); analyse data results

Discussion ensued on publicity for the Parish Plan, as a lead-in to public consultation.

It was agreed that linking this with the PSJ FunDay on 7^th July was essential.

We could take advantage of such factors as being included on the FunDay publicity leaflet which was being sponsored by an external organisation.

Kathy Thomas and Peter Provest, who had jointly staffed our Parish Plan stall last year, pointed out, from that experience, the practical matters that needed to be pre-addressed. Last year many of the public kept enquiring "where is the Plan for us to look at ?".

This year we needed a strong theme of ‘raising awareness’ of the oncoming public consultation exercise. Also last year many of the public were too intent on hurrying past to reach the ‘fun’ that they were unwilling to stop and talk seriously about the Plan. KMT had salvaged this situation somewhat by devising a "do you know your village" paper quiz with a cash prize, this was self-funded from a £ 1 entry fee.

Ross Thompson suggested these problems could be met by attention to the logistics.

Instead of being on the ‘back path’ with the other ‘welfare’ stalls we could ask to be placed near the entrance, then any person stopping to contribute to the Plan exercise could be rewarded with a ‘ticket’ valid for one of the attractions such as bouncy castle or a cup of tea.

Obviously this would require financial reimbursement from Plan funds to those stallholders who redeemed the ‘tickets’, and would not be self-funding like last year.

Members felt this was a generally good idea but with some misgivings about organising it within the limited remaining timescale as FunDay this year was earlier than last year.

Jacqui Ward said she had some general Parish Plan materials she could loan or contribute for the event, but these would not be specific to PSJ.

Terry Nicholls said an eye-catching visual aid would be a very large map of PSJ, possibly as large as 8 ft x 4 ft, which would almost certainly cause people to stop and look at it.

RWGB said in dealing with Publicity he asked everybody to continue the process of renaming the whole project from "Village Plan", ( the term originally used ), to "Parish Plan".

He added that in fact he had a longer term idea to seek general approval for renaming PSJ to some other word ( as yet undecided ) which would neither be ‘village’ nor ‘parish’.

In the meantime this exercise should be called "Parish Plan" universally.

Returning to the eventual content of the published Plan, RWGB expressed disappointment at the continued "drop out rate" of some who had originally been Topic Leaders but had not seen their subjects through. This meant that some Topics were now either in a state of suspense or were having to be picked up by others who already had other tasks to do.

It was appreciated that some members could not attend every meeting due to conflict with other non-Plan commitments, but they received the Minutes and could easily make a progress contribution to be tabled in their absence, not just an ‘apology for absence’.

KMT said a good example of this was that she now found herself processing -all- of the Groups listed in the top right hand box of the schedule of Groups prepared by RRT.

This was not a particular problem as she was getting good co-operation in respect of such bodies as the Beacon Hall old folks and the Rainbows, but, as stated, it was adding to the list of things she was already committed to do.

Guy Matthews said he had a message from Paul Holley re "Highways" project, which was held up because Paul Holley had been promised a paper from Gail Coleshill which he had never received. RWGB said with the recent election changes it was now unlikely
Gail Coleshill would remain associated with our Parish Plan, but he knew the paper referred to and could find a copy for Paul Holley if needed.

RWGB said he himself was now going to have to tackle the Topic of "Education" which was one of the most important ones, covering several aspects, but had clearly stalled.

Members had not reviewed any more already-published Plans since last meeting.

Members had already diarised future meetings from the list at Meeting 10^th May Minutes.

Unfortunately 19 July 2007 needs to be deleted as Beacon Hall management have been obliged to accept another booking for that night which has an over-riding priority to our own.

Secretary PRP tabled a list of alternative dates when Beacon Hall could offer us a booking.

RWGB said 12^th July 2007 must be the alternative date as it was essential to maintain impetus on the project.

This now makes the revised list of future meetings as follows :

Members expressed thanks to Derek Kennedy of Community Association ( Beacon Hall )
in particular for facilitating the availability of the meeting accommodation to the Plan committee and making catering hardware and pre-heated water available.

RWGB said in fact the future of Beacon Hall itself was a matter which would soon need to be explored in regard to ownership and future operations, and would itself need to be featured as an item in the Parish Plan.